John Reed provides insight on the Ukraine, even from a century ago

author: Lawrence J. Maushard

Portland native John Reed still has insight on world affairs though he's been gone for decades.

Some things never change

From his landmark first-person account of the Bolshevik revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World (1919), John Reed has an important segment that crystallizes the Russian perception of what happened then, and a lot of what is happening now, in the Ukraine.

For many people, history is not forgotten. History actually matters.

"There remained several centres of dangerous opposition, such as the 'republics' of Ukraine and Finland, which were showing definitely anti-Soviet tendencies. Both at Helsingfors and at Kiev the governments were gathering troops which could be depended upon, and entering upon campaigns of crushing Bolshevism, and of disarming and expelling Russian troops.

"The Ukrainean Rada had taken command of all southern Russia, and was furnishing Kaledin reinforcements and supplies. Both Finland and Ukraine were beginning secret negotiations with the Germans, and were promptly recognised by the Allied governments, which loaned them huge sums of money, joining with the propertied classes to create counter-revolutionary centres of attack upon Soviet Russia.

"In the end, when Bolshevism had conquered in both these countries, the defeated bourgeoisie called in the Germans to restore them to power."

Stalin kidnapped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and enslaved them in inhuman death camps in Siberia's gulags, worked them to the grave digging canals, and built the "Soviet Miracle" on the backs of millions of helpless, innocent prisoners from the Ukraine. Their farms were stolen and "collectivized"- the inevitable ensuing famines killed millions more. Give me one reason they would want to be under the Soviet yoke today, especially under Ras Putin. This is why Hitler invaded the Sudetenland. To "protect" German speaking "minority" residents from being "oppressed". This is the same false-flag reason Putin is using. The exact identical BS argument. And the Left seems to be going along with it wholeheartedly. Russia good. USA bad. Don't make waves. PEACE IN OUR TIME. So blame it on the NWO if you must, but FREEDOM is contagious, and the Ukraine (or as I call it, The Nukraine) wants the Western version. Bad. Also Russia is to Europe what the Saudi's are to the USA- the big gas mammary. That's the joker in the deck. Poor Ukrainians! Pawns in the GAME.

It really is that simple. George Soros and the neo-Dems created the neo-Nazi Maidan Alliance in Kiev, Ukraine to put that nation into IMF austerity and position instant-kill missiles on the very border of Russia. Most people in Ukraine are actually Russian, and they speak Russian. (And yes, the thugs in Kiev are already killing the Jews there, who are fleeing.)

Enough already from the neo-Nazi neo-Dems. Get score voting and new political parties please!

most people in Ukraine are russian? wtf! most people in Ukraine are Ukrainian. Most russians there are descended from russians sent over centuries of russian expansionism to colonize. same was done to estonia, latvia, armenia, georgia, & so on & so on.

everybody in the streets are neo-nazis? wtf! every revolution from the dawn of history has outside elements. even our occupy movement suffered from that. most people protesting across Ukraine genuinely want democracy, which yanukovich defied.

so easy to spew stupid stuff from the comfort of a soft little chair in portland.

I had no idea that Portland Indymedia was infested with so many neo-Nazi fascists!

Ukrain is now threatened with austerian fascism. The young and old will now be deprived of "education" and old-age benefits by the USA/EU austerity pogroms. Unless Russia steps in. Just like in the USA. But Mother Russia will step in.

The Indymedia fascists will have to live with the reduced food stamps that were spent on the failed $5 Billion dollar USA attempt to subvert the democratically elected government of Ukraine.

And its gun-wielding Nazi control over the controlled Ukraine legislature, which has no legal power to remove the very legitimately elected President Yanukovich.

You'll see him making his usual dictator/totalitarian apologies as long as this crisis continues. Ukraine sought closer ties to the west, so they MUST be neo-fascist-nazi-etc-etc blah blah. Also a classic blues move, anyone who disagrees with him is a neo-nazi or some other cute title.

Guess what blues, the soviet union collapsed because it was a complete failure. Communism is a complete failure. You might not like capitalism, the IMF, or austerity, but they are sure as hell better than the alternative. Stop crying your sad little tears for Putin, and realize that the people in Ukraine took to the streets exactly because they DIDN'T want close ties with Russia.

"blues" says that Jews are being killed in Ukraine. What grotesque & slanderous & dangerous lying. Independent news showed Kerry meeting with protesters in Kyiv (correct spelling), & clearly one can see religious leaders meeting him, including a rabbi & an imam, among orthodox bishops. No revolution has been without taint, including ours & the French & the Russian & the Egyptian, et cetera, but this one has at its heart the simple desire to no longer be a slave to Russia, & i trust especially young Ukrainians to not become slaves to the West either. Throu'out history, Ukraine has been invaded from north, south, east, & west, relentlessly, for many centuries. It would be cool if outsiders left Ukrainians alone, so we could finally witness their creation of a viable state, which they once had, in very distant memory.

[out-take] The gravest threat to this Obama-Putin collaboration has now emerged in Ukraine, where a coalition of U.S. neocon operatives and neocon holdovers within the State Department fanned the flames of unrest in Ukraine, contributing to the violent overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych and now to a military intervention by Russian troops in the Crimea, a region in southern Ukraine that historically was part of Russia. [end]

[out-take] NED, a $100 million-a-year agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against targeted states, lists 65 projects that it supports financially inside Ukraine, including training activists, supporting "journalists" and promoting business groups, effectively creating a full-service structure primed and ready to destabilize a government in the name of promoting "democracy." [end]

Blues favorite dictator has gangs of skinheads going door to door, marking the homes of ethnic Tatars. I wonder why that would be? Almost reminds one of Stalin's mass deportation of Tatars in the 50's. I'm sure blues found that perfectly agreeable as it was done for the good of the glorious communist republic.

So, just so we are clear on blues logic. Ukraine neo-nazis: Bad.

Russian neo-nazis: just fine.

Keep walking around with those blinders on buddy. You'll stumble onto a real argument someday.